Google New Zealand Blog: July 2013

New Zealand Blog

Get an All Access music pass on Google Play

Thursday, July 18, 2013

With millions upon millions of songs out there, it can be a daunting task to figure out what to listen to. Sometimes you just want to sit back, press play and hear something completely new. Starting today, you can do just that with All Access, our new monthly music subscription service in Google Play. All Access gives you an unlimited pass to a huge library of music on all your devices — from all the major record companies, as well as top New Zealand and independent labels.

All Access lets you create an ad-free, interactive radio station from any song or artist you love. You can add, remove or re-order your station and see what’s coming next. Or you can browse recommendations from our expert music team and explore songs by genre. The “Listen Now” tab puts artists and radio stations we think you’ll like front and center so you can start listening the minute you open your library.

And when millions of songs just aren’t enough, Google Play Music lets you combine our collection with your own collection. You can store 20,000 songs for free online, and listen to them alongside the All Access catalogue on any Android device, or via the web at play.google.com. You can even ‘pin’ specific albums and playlists so they’re available when you’re offline.

You can try it today for free for the first month and pay only $10.99 each month after that. Regular pricing for those who sign up after August 31 will be $12.99 a month, with a 30-day free trial.

With today’s launch in New Zealand, you now can find, enjoy and share your favourite apps, games and music on your Android phone or tablet on Google Play.

Sign up for All Access today, and start discovering a whole new world of music.

Posted by Paul Joyce, Product Manager for Google Play Music

E aroha ana ki tōu reo? Tēnā, āwhinatia mai i te mahi whakawā, whakamāori hoki. Love your language? Rate it and translate it.

Monday, July 1, 2013

Five years ago we made a small but important addition to the Google New Zealand homepage: google.co.nz in Māori. A team of Googlers and awesome Māori-speaking volunteers had helped translate thousands of words and phrases so Māori language speakers and students could search the web while fully immersed in their language. At the time, it was one of the first minority languages in the world to be translated into the language of the internet age.
We recently checked in on the usage of the Māori language-version of Google, and were heartened to see that it’s being used tens of thousands of times per day! For a language that numbers only an estimated 30,000 regular speakers, this is a meaningful number of people who are making Māori part of their daily routine—and as experts will tell you, that is the best possible way of bringing an endangered language back from the brink. Far from preserving endangered languages in textbooks and museums, we need to bring them into daily life in a normal, unassuming way—from saying “kia ora” as you board the bus, to clicking "Taku Waimārie Hoki!" instead of "I'm Feeling Lucky".
But we have a long way to go before Māori is off the endangered languages list, and we think technology holds an important key. We need more Māori speakers to join us and rate translations so we can see if Māori could become a candidate for full integration into Google Translate.
Google Translate allows languages to be translated automatically, and thereby opens up worlds of knowledge that may be otherwise hidden. For minority languages such as te reo Māori, it provides more avenues for the language to be seen and used, and greater understanding for those who are unfamiliar with the language.
While ultimately Google Translate works without the intervention of human translators, right now we need a little help from native speakers to rate the initial efforts of Google Translate with Māori. If you are fluent in the Māori language, click on this link and rate as many translations as you have time for. Doing so will help us determine the viability of te reo Māori to be fully integrated with Google Translate—which could be a huge step forward for the language.
The usage of Google services in Māori shows that there are many reasons to be optimistic about the future of New Zealand's beautiful indigenous language—and far from technology further threatening it, technology is helping it. Help us make this a reality by rating some translations to see even more of the Māori language available on the web. Posted by Craig Nevill-Manning, Engineering Director, Google

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